1 million cannabis roots found in Diyarbakır’s Sur

DİYARBAKIR – Anadolu Agency

DHA photo

Some 1 million cannabis roots planted in a UNESCO-protected garden in the Sur district of the southeastern province of Diyarbakır have been seized over the course of a week-long operation conducted by around 450 police officers.

Anti-narcotics teams from the Diyarbakır police department uprooted and burned 1 million cannabis roots planted in the Hevsel Gardens. In operations conducted with the aerial support of helicopters, police teams also interrogated three suspects at the scene. 

Teams also discovered water piping and a pumping system which had been laid down to water the plants in the field. 

The Hevsel Gardens, along with Diyarbakır Fortress, were added to UNESCO’s world heritage site list in July 2015. 

The gardens, a green link between the sprawling city and the Tigris River, which supplies Diyarbakır with food and water, are on a site also encompassing the Amida Mound, the historic İçkale (inner castle), and the 5.8 km-long city walls with numerous towers, gates, buttresses, and 63 inscriptions from different historical eras.

Located on an escarpment of the Upper Tigres River Basin which is part of the so-called “Fertile Crescent,” the fortified city of Diyarbakır and the surrounding landscape has been an important center since the Hellenistic period, through the Roman, Sassanid, Byzantine, Islamic and Ottoman times to the present, the UNESCO website states.